The Chicken or the Egg

[LauraA]

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Of course they're fresh. I've got six hens and I get an average of four eggs a day. Three young hens should be laying by the end of the year.

Fiorina is smart. I wish she would have made the cut for prime time. But she probably will next time as Cruz fizzles.

Question, do you have to have a rooster with the hens to get eggs?

[birdfriend]

Laura, you don't need a rooster with the hens to get eggs. However, if you desire baby chicks, a rooster is necessary.

[Mestral]

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Laura, you don't need a rooster with the hens to get eggs. However, if you desire baby chicks, a rooster is necessary.

Now we are reduced to explaining the birds and the bees to LauraA.

[Grammar Rules]

When is ignoring another member not ignoring her? When you comment on others' messages to her.

[mac]

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When is ignoring another member not ignoring her? When you comment on others' messages to her.

what? is this one of those "read it from the backwards" type things?....mac

[Mestral]

I just felt like having a little fun with the mentally incompetent and integrity deficient people today.

[LauraA]

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Laura, you don't need a rooster with the hens to get eggs. However, if you desire baby chicks, a rooster is necessary.

Thank you, that is interesting. So the hen has the eggs which she just lays. If no one picks them up, then they just never become chicks, only rotten eggs? However, if you have a rooster and I am assuming they have some sort of chicken sex, then you will get an egg that turns into a chick. How do you tell the difference when you are gathering eggs?

[Rick]

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Question, do you have to have a rooster with the hens to get eggs?

I was meaning to address this over the weekend, but was busy, then other stuff came up.

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Now we are reduced to explaining the birds and the bees to LauraA.

I don't fault people for not knowing this. I didn't know it until I read a book and online forums on how to raise chickens in the backyard when I bought my first four chickens ten years ago.

Our Priest was at the house a couple months ago and he was surprised that we didn't need roosters for the hens to lay eggs and he is very intelligent, but being from the city (Pittsburgh), he had no need to know.

If you have roosters, egg production will decrease since they are being chased around all day. We don't plan to hatch our own, so we don't want roosters. I buy the chicks from Cove feed or D&D feed.

The three young ones are Golden Penciled Hamburgs.

Kind of a different breed, but beautiful in color. They are smaller, and are very aware of predators, but supposedly decent egg producers. 200-225 white eggs per year.

I think I have three production reds, they lay around 300 brown eggs per year.


Two buff Orpingtons, they lay 200-280 brown eggs per year.


And one Brown Leghorn, had two, but one got killed by a predator one night. She is the only survivor of the slaughter when I lost a total of seven last year. They used to sleep on top of the old coop, and either a raccoon or a fox got to them. She lays 220-300 white eggs per year. But she is getting older, so her production is dropping a bit.


As you can tell, my chickens are like my pets that produce great tasting food and control the bug population. They really aren't much trouble, and are fun to watch.

[mac]

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Thank you, that is interesting. So the hen has the eggs which she just lays. If no one picks them up, then they just never become chicks, only rotten eggs? However, if you have a rooster and I am assuming they have some sort of chicken sex, then you will get an egg that turns into a chick. How do you tell the difference when you are gathering eggs?

you hold it up to a light (called a candler) and you can tell if egg has been fertilized or not......

or you can see the "blood clot" in the egg if the egg lands right in the skillet....mac

[Mestral]

I don't fault people for not knowing this. I didn't know it until I read a book and online forums on how to raise chickens
in the backyard when I bought my first four chickens ten years ago.
Our Priest was at the house a couple months ago and he was surprised that we didn't need roosters for the hens to lay eggs and he is very intelligent, but being from the city (Pittsburgh), he had no need to know.

You are correct, and it wasn't really fair, but I thought the joke was funny

If you have roosters, egg production will decrease since they are being chased around all day.

The trade off, as I understand it, is the rooster will provide protection against certain predatory birds
(or maybe it was parasitic birds, cukoos and cowbirds for example) since the rooster is territorial by nature.
I know a guy with about 50 hens and one rooster, and that is why he has the rooster.